Stamp of the Day

What, exactly, are we remembering when we "Remember the Alamo." I used to know the answer to that seemingly simple question. We remembered a heroic stand by a vastly outnumbered group of men, all of them white, who fought for freedom against Mexican oppressors. The men who died in that fight were a "Hall of Fame" …

As the great gospel song says, I "woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom." I didn't realize that was the case until late in the day but looking back at the day, it's clear it was there all day long. Freedom was a clear theme when, over my morning coffee, I read "This Day …

For me, and many other people, today is the one-year anniversary of when I not only started working from home but also began to actively avoid as many face-to-face interactions as possible. Reflecting on this anniversary this evening, I've been thinking about what I've needed to get through the year. That, in turn, made me …

Six years ago today, I got on an airplane in Boston to head to Los Angeles. Later that day, the National Weather Service officially reported that the winter 2014-2015 was the snowiest year since we started keeping track of such things. We had, at that point received 108.6 inches, breaking a record set in 1994-1995 …

"If only my uncle, the general, was here." Those were the magic words that allowed my parents to get married in Baltimore on August 1, 1944. And they were the words my mother loved to repeat when she told the story, which she did so frequently that her grandkids could (and would) mouth the words as …

"Break on through to the other side," the Doors' hit song from 1967, was an important part of the soundtrack of my last semester in college, in the spring of 1980. Today, as I ponder the fact as of Monday I finally will be eligible to be vaccinated, the idea of getting to "the other …

In 1968, when I was 11 and my brother was 16, he snuck out of the hotel room where my family was staying in Las Vegas to play blackjack in the casino. My family was touring the southwest and west in a U-Haul truck that had been converted into a camper van, which meant we …

You would think that after writing 337 #stampoftheday posts, that a stamp could no longer surprise me. While you'd usually be right. Today you are wrong. The stamp that surprised me is a 5-cent stamp, issued in May 1907, that portrays Pocahontas, who died on March 21, 1617. It was one of three issued in conjunction …

To a man with a post office, every problem looks like a stamp. At least that seems to be the thinking behind today’s #stampoftheday, a 4-cent stamp issued in 1961l. Unlike most stamps, it doesn’t picture a person or a place. Instead prominently features seven of the most famous words in American history: “Give me liberty …